Hi everyone,
I recently stumbled across a very worn silver coin which has also appears to have been scratched in cleaning. However, I'm very curious to see if I could identify the coin with some reasonable amount of accuracy, so I'm asking for thoughts on this or just feedback or pointers on how to approach such a problem.
- In its worn state, it is ~15.5mm in diameter with a weight of 1.3g.
- Initially, I thought that it possesed a laureate bust, but I now believe that it is instead helmeted, with hair visible at the back of the head.
- A faint “X” is visible below the chin, which leads to me believe it is a republican denarius.
-The reverse is almost featureless, save for a very faint “f” shape. Leaving it to the imagination, it could be a remnant of galloping Dioscuri or quadriga, although I can't say for certain.
All in all, I believe that I am looking at a Republican denarius, with a helmeted head of Roma from ~148-100BC - when value markings were commonly placed under the chin.
So, any thoughts on this? I'm still new to numistatics, and I would love to hear some pointers on how to approach such an identification.
Many thanks!
